Politics, Government & Business in California's Inland Empire
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 02/23/17 - 5:47 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Three alleged victims of police beatings whose judgments would be reduced by 99 percent under the terms of the bankruptcy plan approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury have filed notice that they will appeal that ruling.
By Jim Christie | San Francisco
U.S. | Fri Jan 27, 2017 | 6:36pm EST
San Bernardino, California, won final court approval on Friday for its financial restructuring plan, clearing the way for the city to wrap up the bankruptcy case it launched more than four years ago when its leaders learned it was facing insolvency.
Paloma Esquivel
December 6, 2016
After four long, painful years, San Bernardino will soon emerge from bankruptcy.
By Ryan Hagen, San Bernardino Sun
Posted: 10/14/16 - 7:38 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> The city of San Bernardino entered the final stage of its bankruptcy case Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, with a confirmation hearing the city and its thousands of creditors have awaited for more than four years.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 07/31/16 - 6:57 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> One of the nation’s longest municipal bankruptcies begins its fifth year on Monday And it’s probably its last, officials say.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 06/16/16 - 6:18 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> San Bernardino is moving toward a confirmation hearing — the final stage in a bankruptcy that began in 2012 — in October after a somewhat bumpy hearing Thursday with the last creditor to object to the stage before that.
By Ed Mendel
May 2, 2016
After reaching agreements with all major creditors, San Bernardino is moving toward an exit from a four-year bankruptcy this fall without cutting public pensions, its largest and rapidly growing debt.
By Dale Kasler
Business & Real Estate
April 12, 2016 3:29 PM
[email protected]
RENO —
The late Alfred Villalobos, the central figure in the CalPERS bribery case, always insisted he did nothing wrong and he didn’t owe the state of California a dime.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 04/01/16 - 5:48 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The end to the city’s three-year-old bankruptcy is in sight, but the 20 years after exiting bankruptcy will still be tough, city officials tell their creditors and bankruptcy judge in the latest version of the bankruptcy exit plan.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/29/16 - 9:15 PM PDT |
San Bernardino will pay the holders of its pension obligation bonds 40 percent of what they’re owed, reducing the total payments to one of its largest creditors by about $45 million, according to a settlement between the bankrupt city and those creditors.
Andrew Khouri
March 17, 2016
The owner of the Los Angeles Times was selected as the top bidder for the Orange County Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise during the papers’ bankruptcy auction, but the U.S. Department of Justice immediately filed a lawsuit to block the deal Thursday on antitrust grounds.
Jonathan Lansner / Staff Writer
March 15, 2016
Updated: March 16, 2016 - 9:55 a.m.
The U.S. Justice Department sees “serious” antitrust issues with Tribune Publishing’s bankruptcy bid for The Orange County Register and The Press-Enterprise and would take action to keep any merger from hurting local newspaper readers and advertisers, according to a letter to Freedom Communications.
Laurence Darmiento
March 13, 2016
Digital First Media, owner of the Los Angeles Daily News, was selected Sunday as the bidder to beat in an auction for the assets of Freedom Communications, the bankrupt owner of the Orange County Register.
Published: Feb. 25, 2016 Updated: Feb. 26, 2016 6:49 a.m.
San Bernardino is expected to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year, city officials said Thursday, Feb. 25.
To read article by Alejandra Molina in The Press-Enterprise, click here.
James Rufus Koren
February 13, 2016
An investor group led by the chief executive of Freedom Communications will not be among the initial bidders for the bankrupt company, in a reversal from a plan first announced in November.
Wednesday, Feb 3, 2016 - 8:10pm EST
SAN FRANCISCO | By Jim Christie
The bankrupt city of San Bernardino, California, said in a court filing on Wednesday it had reached a tentative agreement with the creditor holding its pension obligation bonds on how the debt would be treated in the city’s plan to exit bankruptcy but did not provide details.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 02/01/16 - 9:26 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> An agreement between the city and its firefighter union that ends more than $40 million worth of disputes is now final, with approval from both sides.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 01/25/16 - 9:10 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The city and one of its most consistent legal adversaries, the fire union, have a tentative agreement that ends all of their legal disputes, after the City Council approved it during a closed session meeting Monday, according to City Attorney Gary Saenz.
Published: Jan. 22, 2016
Updated: Jan. 23, 2016 - 9:06 p.m.
The city of San Bernardino hopes that a provision of its bankruptcy-exit plan will erase more than $49 million from the books by allowing it to pay only 1 percent – $500,000 – to its unsecured creditors.
To read story by Brian Rokos in The Press-Enterprise, click here.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 01/05/16 - 5:46 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Unlike every other retiree in this and other bankrupt California cities, 23 retired San Bernardino police officers would lose part of their pension in the city’s bankruptcy plan — and they’re going public with their opposition to those cuts.
By Robin Respaut
December 23, 2015
The bankrupt California city of San Bernardino won praise from bondholders on Wednesday for its handling earlier this month of the massacre that killed 14 people, but at the first significant court hearing since the attack, creditors questioned a plan to increase spending to bolster the police force.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 12/22/15 - 7:39 PM PST |
An appeals court once again ruled against the San Bernardino City Professional Firefighters and in favor of the city Tuesday, affirming U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury’s conclusion that nothing in the city charter or state law prevents the city from outsourcing its Fire Department.
Andrew Khouri
December 14, 2015
A federal judge has approved a $4.5-million loan that will allow the Orange County Register to operate during bankruptcy — setting the stage for a possible bidding war by an insider group and the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News.
Andrew Khouri
November 14, 2015
Another bidder appears to be lining up for Freedom Communications, the owner of the Orange County Register that filed for bankruptcy last week.
By Sean Emery and Jonathan Lansner / Staff Writers
Nov. 4, 2015 - Updated 8:11 p.m.
The owner of the Los Angeles Times made a surprise offer Wednesday to lend $3 million to the owner of The Orange County Register and The Press-Enterprise in what may be a precursor to a bid to buy the two newspapers out of Freedom Communications’ bankruptcy.
Monday, November 2, 2015 - 08:30 a.m.
Freedom Communications, parent of The Press-Enterprise and Orange County Register newspapers has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
What a shock!
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 10/08/15 - 8:36 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> The bankrupt city of San Bernardino will have to produce much more extensive information — at a pace its advisers say will be grueling — before it can clear a vital hurdle in the path of bankruptcy plan confirmation, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury said Thursday.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 09/17/15 - 11:00 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> In a decision she acknowledged “puts a bunch of marbles on the road to reorganization” for San Bernardino, Judge Meredith Jury ruled Thursday the city hadn’t met its legal obligation to bargain with the fire union before outsourcing the Fire Department.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 09/10/15 - 10:32 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Members of the city’s largest employee union were briefly confused and frustrated when a tentative contract agreement reported to bankruptcy court was pulled off the City Council agenda, but he approval process is now back on track, according to a union leader.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 09/08/15 - 4:08 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> San Bernardino has a tentative contract agreement with its largest employee group, the so-called general unit, the city’s bankruptcy attorney announced in court Tuesday.
By Shan Li
September 9, 2015
Supermarket chain Haggen filed Tuesday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after struggling for months with a huge expansion into new states including California.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - 12:30 p.m.
Only San Bernardino, California could hatch a whacked-out and completely unlawful scheme to tax it’s property owners.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 08/25/15 - 12:25 AM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The City Council voted 4-3 on Monday to move forward with transferring responsibility for fire and emergency protection to the County Fire Department, a move that would also mean a $142-per-year tax on every parcel in the city.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 07/29/15 - 5:42 PM PDT |
After more than two years of police leaving San Bernardino, saying the lack of a contract robbed them of a sense of stability in a city where many residents say crime is their top concern, the police union and city negotiators both say they’ve agreed on a new contract.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 07/15/15 - 9:22 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> Nothing in the city charter prevents San Bernardino from outsourcing its Fire Department, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Wednesday in a blow to the fire union that its attorneys immediately said they would appeal.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 06/17/15 - 11:24 PM PDT |
RIVERSIDE >> The attorney representing bondholders who’ve invested about $50 million in San Bernardino came out swinging Wednesday in the first bankruptcy hearing since the city filed a bankruptcy exit plan that would pay bondholders only 1 percent of that.
Business & Real Estate
June 10, 2015
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
Setting up a possible showdown with CalPERS, two bond firms are reviving their legal campaign to win a bigger share of the money being doled out by bankrupt San Bernardino.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 05/29/15 - 7:52 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The earth didn’t move under the city, which means today is the last day U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury will accept the city’s bankruptcy exit plan.
By Ed Mendel
May 26, 2015
A San Bernardino plan to exit bankruptcy follows the path of the Vallejo and Stockton exit plans, cutting bond debt and retiree health care but not pensions. Then it veers off in a new direction: contracting for fire, waste management and other services.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
POSTED: 05/18/15 - 8:55 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> A full-court press by the city’s administrators, consultants and allies from the community convinced six of the seven council members Monday that it was vital to pass the Plan of Adjustment, pushing the city into the next stage of its nearly three-year bankruptcy.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
POSTED: 05/16/15 - 8:35 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The deep cuts and extensive restructuring proposed in the city’s bankruptcy exit plan got a unanimous thumbs-up from its strategic planning core team on Saturday, as the City Council prepares to vote on the plan Monday.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 05/14/15, 4:49 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The proposed bankruptcy exit plan released to the public for the first time Thursday would pay 1 percent of the $50 million owed to pension obligation bondholders, slash retirees’ healthcare coverage, and contract out for services, including fire and waste disposal, among other changes.
Thursday, May 14, 2015 - 04:30 p.m.
You gotta hand it to bankrupt San Bernardino, California. If there’s any local government that can screw anything up, it’s good ole San Berdoo!
Thursday, May 14, 2015 - 04:00 p.m.
Tonight on the show, Ryan Hagen joins to program to discuss San Bernardino’s plan to exit bankruptcy. The only problem, they are releasing it at 5:00, then locking the doors to city hall until Monday morning. Also, Lou will cover the local headlines from the Inland Empire.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 05/13/15, 8:27 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> City officials say they will release a sweeping bankruptcy exit plan Thursday afternoon and ask the City Council on Monday to commit to changes they say will significantly affect residents, employees and creditors for years to come.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
Government pensions in California have withstood another fierce challenge in bankruptcy court.
By Beau Yarbrough, The Sun
Posted: 04/10/15, 6:55 PM PDT | Updated: 2 hrs ago
SAN BERNARDINO >> The union representing San Bernardino’s firefighters sued the city in a pair of lawsuits on Thursday and Friday, alleging city officials are violating San Bernardino’s charter in an ongoing pay dispute.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/27/15, 12:01 AM PDT
RIVERSIDE >> San Bernardino’s lack of progress as the deadline to file a bankruptcy exit plan approaches is “perplexing” and shows an important contrast with other cities that have gone through bankruptcy, according to an attorney representing the city’s pension obligation bondholders who also was involved in bankruptcies in Detroit, Stockton, and Central Falls, Rhode Island.
March 28, 2015
The City of San Bernardino is in a real bind regarding its bankruptcy proceedings. San Bernardino has a drop dead date to submit its bankruptcy plan by May 30. Management Partners, the organization brought on board to put that plan together has stated that due to staff failures they are likely to miss Judge Jury’s hard deadline, which will require a request to continue the proceedings, again. Reminder: The city filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in August, 2012.
LOS ANGELES | By Tim Reid
Thu Mar 26, 2015 - 6:28pm EDT
(Reuters) - The bankrupt California city of San Bernardino revealed on Thursday details of its deal with the state’s public pension system Calpers, in which the retirement fund will be paid in full under the city’s bankruptcy exit plan.
Monday, Mar 23, 2015 - 5:57pm EDT
(Reuters) - The holdout creditor in Stockton, California’s bankruptcy case filed its opening brief in an appeal of the city’s reorganization plan on Monday, claiming “no bondholder has ever received so little in the history of municipal bankruptcy.”
Sunday, March 22, 2015 - 10:30 a.m.
Just as bankrupt San Bernardino, California is starting to get its act together, comes another possible step backwards.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/17/15 - 6:41 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> The city’s auditor revealed for the first time late Monday that it might be impossible to finish auditing the city’s financial statements in time for them to be used in a bankruptcy exit plan due May 30, potentially opening the city to crippling attacks by creditors.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/17/15, 2:59 PM PDT
RIVERSIDE >> A federal judge in San Bernardino’s bankruptcy case ruled Tuesday that the city can reject its bargaining agreement with the city’s police union.
By Tim Reid
Tue Mar 17, 2015 - 10:52pm EDT
Los Angeles —
(Reuters) - The southern California city of San Bernardino has defaulted on nearly $10 million in payments on its privately placed pension bond debt since it declared bankruptcy in 2012, according to documents seen by Reuters.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
03/16/2015 7:52 PM
Defending its plan to fully repay its debts to CalPERS, the bankrupt city of San Bernardino has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit by creditors demanding equal treatment.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/15/15, 8:08 PM PDT | Updated: 2 hrs ago
SAN BERNARDINO >> It’ll cost double what we said, and if you don’t agree you’ll be thrown out of bankruptcy court.
By Ed Mendel
Monday, March 2, 2015
On the day that Stockton emerged from bankruptcy last week, ending 32 months of debt protection, the final court argument was about the “cram down” imposed on the only creditor that did not cut a deal.
Rich Ibarra
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 | Sacramento, CA
The City of Stockton officially exits bankruptcy Wednesday. The exit ends more than two years of negotiations, settlements, and development of a future fiscal plan.
By Ed Mendel
February 16, 2015
CalPERS has paid two law firms more than $7 million in the Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino bankruptcies, even though a federal judge doubts that it has the legal standing to object to city pension cuts.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
02/05/2015 6:44 PM
With harsh words for CalPERS and an angry bondholder, a U.S. bankruptcy judge has put into writing his pivotal rulings on the sanctity of public pensions in the Stockton bankruptcy case.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
01/20/2015 8:58 PM
A bankruptcy judge Tuesday dismissed an effort to keep Stockton mired in bankruptcy while a creditor challenges a decision that lets the city pay its CalPERS pension bills in full.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 01/14/15, 7:01 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> With a May 30 deadline to file its bankruptcy exit plan looming and years of growth hoped for after that, city officials are moving forward with a long-term strategic plan that will help form the bankruptcy plan and extend far beyond it.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
01/08/2015 8:44 PM
Government pensions, once thought to be ironclad in California, are under attack in court once again.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 12/16/14, 8:58 PM PST | Updated: 28 secs ago
SAN BERNARDINO >> The city has a “work plan” to prepare its bankruptcy exit plan, and it’s been reviewed by the entire City Council — not just the small team that previously was allowed to know details of the confidential mediation where much of the city’s bankruptcy plan has been ironed out.
By Ed Mendel
Monday, December 1, 2014
What happens when a bankrupt city does not cut its largest debt, pensions, is getting its first test in Vallejo, which has higher average pensions and higher CalPERS rates than the two larger cities still in bankruptcy, Stockton and San Bernardino.
Bankrupt San Bernardino rolls over, but pension problems persist
By Steven Greenhut
Nov. 21, 2014
SACRAMENTO — The recent announcement that the bankrupt city of San Bernardino has agreed to fully pay its pension debt to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System has public-employee unions cheering. But pension reformers, though demoralized, believe the CalPERS victory is a hollow one.
By Ed Mendel
November 20, 2014
A former Stockton city manager, Bob Deis, regarded as the architect of the Stockton plan to exit bankruptcy, is part of a consulting team hired by bankrupt San Bernardino this week to develop an exit plan.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 11/18/14, 7:46 PM PST |
RIVERSIDE >> San Bernardino has six months to come up with a detailed plan to exit bankruptcy or its case will be thrown out of court.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
11/18/2014 11:08 PM
Public employees and retirees in California absorbed a potentially devastating court ruling a little more than a month ago: Pension benefits can be legally slashed if their employers go bankrupt.
The cities in a position to cut pensions, however, have shown no interest in doing so.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 11/06/14, 8:36 PM PST |
San Bernardino voters’ decision not to change the way police and firefighters are paid is a “game-changer” that could mean outsourcing services and going back to voters next year — this time to raise taxes, the city’s bankruptcy attorney said Thursday.
By Marc Lifsher
November 2, 2014
Stockton employees and retirees avoided pension cuts when a federal judge last week approved the San Joaquin Valley city’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
By Dale Kasler
[email protected]
10/30/2014 9:20 PM
Government pensions in California remain untouchable, at least for now, after a bankruptcy judge approved Stockton’s plan to repay its creditors Thursday without reducing the city’s pension obligations.
By Marc Lifsher and Melody Petersen
October 29, 2014
In a closely watched case, a federal judge on Thursday is expected to decide whether the bankrupt city of Stockton can continue to pay employees generous pensions that soon could consume one-fifth of municipal revenues.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 10/14/14, 11:39 PM PDT | Updated: 49 secs ago
The police officer association’s nearly yearlong truce with the city is over, the union’s attorney said Wednesday in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
By Ed Mendel
October 6, 2014
A federal judge ruled last week that Stockton’s CalPERS pensions can be cut in bankruptcy. But Stockton does not want to cut pensions, and the lone holdout creditor says it can be paid without cutting pensions.
By Dan Walters
[email protected]
Published: Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014 - 10:20 pm
It should have surprised no one that federal Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Klein declared that public employees’ pensions are not sacrosanct when their employers declare bankruptcy.
Michael Hiltzik
October 2, 2014
The investment house Franklin Templeton’s effort to knock down the city of Stockton’s proposal to emerge from bankruptcy portrays the case as one in which Franklin is defending itself against three big, faceless adversaries.
Restructuring & Bankruptcy
By Mary Williams Walsh
October 1, 2014 9:15 pmOctober 1, 2014 9:15 pm
A federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday upended the widely held belief that public workers’ pensions have a special status in California that makes them impossible to cut, further chipping away at the idea that pensions are sacrosanct in a municipal bankruptcy.
AP California News
Oct 2, 9:28 AM EDT
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — U.S. bankruptcy law allows the California city of Stockton to cut pension benefits because it can treat its obligations to the public retirement fund like other debts, a federal judge said in a ruling that could help clarify who gets paid first by financially strapped cities around the nation - pension funds or creditors.
By Ryan Hagen, Press-Telegram
Posted: 10/01/14, 11:38 PM PDT |
A decision Wednesday by the judge at Stockton’s bankruptcy trial that allows bankrupt cities to treat the California Public Employees’ Retirement system like other debtors might open the door for other insolvent cities that could want to cut back on expensive pension obligations — including San Bernardino.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 09/20/14, 8:57 PM PDT | Updated: 58 secs ago
Hearings have begun on Detroit’s plan to exit bankruptcy, slightly more than a year after the distressed Motor City filed for bankruptcy — and at least six months before San Bernardino, which filed for bankruptcy a year before Detroit, expects to even come up with a plan.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 09/19/14, 4:12 PM PDT | Updated: 23 secs ago
RIVERSIDE >> U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury on Friday slightly dialed back the city’s declaration of victory at its previous hearing here, issuing a scaled-down order that still allows the city to reject its current contract with the firefighters union.
By Tim Reid
RIVERSIDE Calif. Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - The city of San Bernardino, California, may impose cuts to its firefighters overtime and pension benefits in a bid to reach a bankruptcy exit plan, the federal judge overseeing the case said on Thursday.
By Jim Steinberg, The Sun
Posted: 08/14/14, 8:29 PM PDT | Updated: 49 secs ago
SAN BERNARDINO >> The city and the San Bernardino Police Officers Association announced to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury that they have reached a tentative long-term agreement, officials said.